Prague's main train station gets a new passage to Žižkov

While the Prague 3 neighborhood of Žižkov borders the city's main train station (Hlavní nádraží), the area has long lacked direct access to station. Travelers from Žižkov need to take a roundabout journey through Prague 1 to be able to get to Hlavní nádraží.

Not any longer: a new underground passageway from the station directly to Žižkov is currently under construction. It will run underneath the railway tracks and lead out the back of the station, to an area of Prague 3 that has itself seen a lot of renovations in recent years.

The new passageway won't be completed until later this year, but travelers can already make use of a temporary solution to get from Hlavní nádraží to Žižkov: a series of elevators that accomplishes the same journey.

"From Hlavní nádraží to Žižkov easily and safely thanks to new elevators from the 7th platform," Prague Integrated Transport (PID) writes on Facebook.

"Along with the construction of a new pathway under Hlavní nádraží in the direction of Žižkov to Winston Churchill Square, new elevators were built at the station's 7th platform [...] which you can now use for a safe journey."

"The elevator will take you to an underground corridor, which will lead you under the tracks of Hlavní nádraží to another elevator, which will take you to the surface. [From there] it is just a short walk down a makeshift pedestrian pathway toward Winston Churchill Square."

Long undeveloped, the Žižkov area behind Prague's main train station has seen some significant upgrades in recent years.

Nicknamed Churchill for its proximity to Winston Churchill Square in front of Prague's VŠE University of Economics and Business, the location now boasts residential and office buildings as well as restaurants and shopping options including a Lidl supermarket.

The underground passageway from Hlavní nádraží to Žižkov is expected to be completed in August 2021. The cost of the project, which also includes work on the train tracks above the passage, is estimated at 220 million crowns.